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You are searching for the diamonds in a remote area. After hours, you see a temple with a diamond engraved. You realise that this is the diamond temple. The temple has the following also engraved:

A h f K 1 C B a 1 F h r N e

Below the code is a keypad with all the letters of the English alphabet. You look down at your feet, all you see are human skulls scattered around. This must be a one-shot job.

There are no other entrances to this temple.

You try to figure out the password needed to enter the temple of diamonds. You do not know how many characters are required for the password.

Here is the first hint:

Forget the strong.

You ponder on the hint for a while, then you get hungry, so you go and kill an oxen and get some water in a flask. You carry your food and water with you to the temple.

Then you get an idea of what the hint means.

Of course! I am very happy to have learnt HTML!

The temple suddenly ejected a parchment containing the next hint:

Notice the bold, italic and normal text in the cryptogram.

You wake up after a long night's sleep. You see if the temple has more hints, but you have no luck. Suddenly you spot two torn pieces of paper.

You cannot read the whole thing because the paper is torn.

Ital

The other paper reads:

un-hex

You try to figure out what these words mean.

What does "Ital" mean? Maybe Italy? So I've got Italy and "un-hex", whatever that means.

This is probably the paper hint of the previous diamond hunters. I am lucky.

You look around you. You are surrounded by walls of over 20 metres in height. You have enough food to last for a day. You now have a time limit on solving the puzzle. You think.

PLEASE WRITE YOUR ANSWERS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE PARTIAL SO THAT I CAN TELL YOU IF YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK OR NOT. THANK YOU.

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    $\begingroup$ What happens to the rest of the skeleton? :O $\endgroup$
    – Ian MacDonald
    Commented Jun 6, 2015 at 12:04
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    $\begingroup$ This is not important to the puzzle. Yet to satisfy you and others, let us just say that the bones sank underneath the sand. $\endgroup$
    – user41805
    Commented Jun 6, 2015 at 12:06
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    $\begingroup$ @IanMacDonald If you get the password wrong, your body is vaporised from the neck down, while your head (eventually decaying to a skull) is left as a warning to others. Use your imagination, man! :-) $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Jun 6, 2015 at 15:56
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    $\begingroup$ One of the hint mentions HTML. Is html knowledge required to solve this puzzle? $\endgroup$
    – leoll2
    Commented Jun 6, 2015 at 16:57
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe @leoll2. I know HTML $\endgroup$
    – Sharad Gautam
    Commented Jun 6, 2015 at 16:58

3 Answers 3

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The password is

T A U

Reason:

Using the f2831he provided by ITAdminNC, change the letters with their respective numbers. For example, a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, etc. Then it will be changed to 6283185. Now add a decimal point to the number: 6.283185. This number is the value of tau, or twice PI. So that is why the password is TAU.

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Let's see...

Forget the strong: f1C1Fhe

And finally...

Convert the italicized hexadecimal numbers to standard: 1c = 28, 1f = 31

Which leaves my answer...

f2831he

Revised answer

Convert the remaining letters back to hexadecimal: 6628316865

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  • $\begingroup$ You are very close to the solution. How do you translate the letters(f h e) into numbers? $\endgroup$
    – user41805
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 9:45
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't even think about the, because I was thrown off at first to even place this conclusion because you said "English Alphabet" instead of "English Alphanumeric blahblah".. let me think a moment $\endgroup$
    – ITAdminNC
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 9:47
  • $\begingroup$ After you decode it, you get a number. That number gives a clue to the password(which is still a word). $\endgroup$
    – user41805
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 9:49
  • $\begingroup$ I revised my answer before I saw this comment. I feel like I'm going down the wrong path now. $\endgroup$
    – ITAdminNC
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 10:00
  • $\begingroup$ You unfortunately are going on the wrong path. Take the letters 'f', 'h' and 'e' and translate them to english in the simplest possible way. DO NOT change the rest of the numbers, let them remain unchanged. $\endgroup$
    – user41805
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 10:02
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This'll be a work in progress, so nobody ban me, okay?

Anyway, let's start by taking the letters in groups:

Bolded capital A, K, B, N

Italic capital preceded by an one 1F, 1C

Bolded h, a, r

Normal f, e, h

You hit the 2 key and then hit enter. Nothing happens. You guess that it just literally lets time kill you.

Come to think of it, it is kind of addicting... No wonder everyone's died...

But now's not the time to dwell on the past! You have a puzzle before you!

You throw aside the bolded letters. This leaves you with 1F, 1C, f, e, h.

It's putting EMphasis on the numbers, that's for sure...

You puzzle over it for a bit. You come to the conclusion that there's a little hexidecimal in this puzzle. Perhaps.

You hit the 2 key again, and circle around the temple. Turns out there was a little monitor-like thing on the back showing what you are putting in... You shrug and walk back to press the enter key to clear the string. You write down 2831 and fhe.

Fhe sounds like the Greek letter phi. You know that the sum of the numbers is 14, the sum of the hexadecimals is 59, and that there is only one C in the puzzle... RO13 states that f=t, h=u, and e=r... wait. H stands for header? You don't really know if that's right.

Well, if h stands for header, then f stands for footer... You can't think of any HTML page block that begins with a e, though.

You are Fixing a Hole as the rain comes in, which stops your mind from wandering...

Current Results: 1F, 1C, 2831, 2, 8, 3, 1, f, h, e, phi, fhe, header, footer, t, u, r.

You wonder if the oxen in the story meant anything.

You fix the hole and start to think. You took the italic numbers and converted them from hexadecimal... twenty-eight thirty-one. F twenty-eight thirty-one h e. F 2 8 3 1 H E.

You try the codes F B H C A H E and F B E H E. Behafe? Be safe? Behave? Breathe? Bechathe? No, that last one doesn't seem right. You then punch in BE SAFE, BEHAVE, and BREATHE. Phoebe? You also try PHOEBE. FHEBE. You can't think of any anagrams with these letters. BEHEF. BELIEF. BHEEF. BEEF. HEBEF. CAFEBH. CALIF. You have no idea there that last one came from. You think of trying SWORDFISH, but you realize that would just be dumb. EHEBF? FAFACFE? BEREAVE? (You try every combination in all capital letters.)

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    $\begingroup$ Why do you hit the 2 key? $\endgroup$
    – mmking
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 1:49
  • $\begingroup$ You are on the right track! $\endgroup$
    – user41805
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 5:08
  • $\begingroup$ @mmking That was just to establish that it was just addictingly deadly. $\endgroup$
    – Nefer007
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 11:37
  • $\begingroup$ Darn. I lost, I overthunk things. Bummer. $\endgroup$
    – Nefer007
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 17:08

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